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Why Grow Old? 



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CH AR ACTER OPPORTUNITY 

CHEERFULNESS IRON WILL 

GOOD MANNERS ECONOMY 

THE POWER OF PERSONALITY 



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Why Grow Old? 



By 

Orison Swett Marden 

Author of " Every Man a King," " Peace 
Power, and Plenty," etc. 



w 



New York 

Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 

Publishers 



«*"*< 



* 



Copyright, 1909 
By Orison Swett Marden 

Copyright, 1909 
By Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 



©Qa^. I3.><i°<l 


CI. A 244792 


AUa 14 1909 



WHY GROW OLD? 



" The face cannot betray the years until the mind has given 
its consent. The mind is the sculptor," 

"We renew our bodies by renewing our thoughts; change 
our bodies, our habits, by changing our thoughts." 

^^^^OT long ago the former secretary to a 
J| justice of the New York Supreme Court 
*A— {$ committed suicide on his seventieth 
birthday. 

"The Statute of Limitations; a Brief Essay on 
the Osier Theory of Life," was found beside the 
dead body. It read in part : 

"Threescore and ten — this is the scriptural 
statute of limitations. After that, active work for 
man ceases, his time on earth has expired. . . . 

"I am seventy — threescore and ten — and I 
am fit only for the chimney-corner. . . ." 

This man had dwelt so long on the so-called 
Osier theory — that a man is practically useless 
and only a burden to himself and the world after 
sixty — and the biblical limitation of life to three- 
score years and ten, that he made up his mind he 
would end it all on his seventieth birthday. 

Leaving aside Dr. Osier's theory, there is no 
doubt that the acceptance in a strictly literal 

[3] 



Why Grow Old? 



sense of the biblical life limit has proved a decided 
injury to the race. We are powerfully influenced 
by our self-imposed limitations and convictions, 
and it is well known that many people die very 
near the limit they set for themselves, even though 
they are in good health when this conviction settles 
upon them. Yet there is no probability that the 
Psalmist had any idea of setting any limit to the 
life period, or that he had any authority whatever 
for so doing. Many of the sayings in the Bible 
which people take so literally and accept blindly 
as standards of living are merely figures of speech 
used to illustrate an idea. So far as the Bible is 
concerned, there is just as much reason for setting 
the life limit at one hundred and twenty or even 
at Methuselah's age (nine hundred and sixty-nine) 
as at seventy or eighty. There is no evidence in 
the Scriptures that even suggests the existence of 
an age limit beyond which man was not supposed 
or allowed to pass. 

In fact the whole spirit of the Bible is to en- 
courage long life through sane and healthful living. 
It points to the duty of living a useful and noble 
life, of making as much of ourselves as possible, 
all of which tends to prolong our years on earth. 

It would be a reflection upon the Creator to 
suggest that He would limit human life to less 

[4] 



Why Grow Old? 



than three times the age at which it reaches 
maturity (about thirty) when all the analogy of 
nature, especially in the animal kingdom, points 
to at least five times the length of the maturing 
period. Should not the highest manifestation of 
God's creation have a length of life at least equal 
to that of the animal ? Infinite wisdom does not 
shake the fruit off the tree before it is ripe. 

We do not half realize what slaves we are to 
our mental attitudes, what power our convictions 
have to influence our lives. Multitudes of people 
undoubtedly shorten their lives by many years 
because of their deep-seated convictions that they 
will not live beyond a certain age — the age, 
perhaps, at which their parents died. How often 
we hear this said: "I do not expect to live to be 
very old ; my father and mother died young." 

Not long ago a New York man, in perfect health, 
told his family that he was certain he should die 
on his next birthday. On the morning of his 
birthday his family, alarmed because he refused 
to go to work, saying that he should certainly die 
before midnight, insisted upon calling in the 
family physician, who examined him and said 
there was nothing the matter with him. But the 
man refused to eat, grew weaker and weaker 
during the day, and actually died before mid- 

[5] 



Why Grow Old? 



night. The conviction that he was going to 
die had become so intrenched in his mind that 
the whole force of his mentality acted to cut 
off the life force, and finally to strangle com- 
pletely the life processes. 

Now, if this man's conviction could have been 
changed by some one who had sufficient power over 
him, or if the mental suggestion that he was going 
to live to a good old age had been implanted in his 
mind in place of the death idea, he would probably 
have lived many years longer. 

If you have convinced yourself, or if the idea 
has been ingrained into the very structure of your 
being by your training or the multitudes of ex- 
amples about you, that you will begin to show 
the marks of age at about fifty, that at sixty you 
will lose the power of your faculties, your interest 
in life; that you will become practically useless 
and have to retire from your business, and that 
thereafter you will continue to decline until you 
are cut off entirely, there is no power in the world 
that can keep the old-age processes and signs from 
developing in you. 

Thought leads. If it is an old-age thought, old 
age must follow. If it is a youthful thought, a 
perennial young-life thought, a thought of useful- 
ness and helpfulness, the body must correspond. 

[6] 



Why Grow Old? 



Old age begins in the mind. The expression of 
age in the body is the harvest of old-age ideas 
which have been planted in the mind. We see 
others about our age beginning to decline and show 
marks of decrepitude, and we imagine it is about 
time for us to show the same signs. Ultimately we 
do show them, because we think they are inevitable. 
But they are only inevitable because of our old-age 
mental attitude and race habit beliefs. 

If we actually refuse to grow old ; if we insist on 
holding the youthful ideal and the young, hopeful, 
buoyant thought, the old-age ear-marks will not 
show themselves. 

The elixir of youth lies in the mind or nowhere. 
You cannot be young by trying to appear so, by 
dressing youthfully. You must first get rid of the 
last vestige of thought that you are aging. As 
long as that is in the mind, cosmetics and youthful 
dress will amount to very little in changing your 
appearance. The conviction must first be changed ; 
the thought which has produced the aging con- 
dition must be reversed. 

If we can only establish the perpetual-youth 
mental attitude, so that we feel young, we have 
won half the battle against old age. Be sure of 
this, that whatever you feel regarding your age 
will be expressed in your body. 

[7] 



Why Grow Old? 



It is a great aid to the perpetuation of youth to 
learn to feel young, however long we may have 
lived, because the body expresses the habitual 
feeling, habitual thought. Nothing in the world 
will make us look young as long as we are con- 
vinced that we are aging. 

Nothing else more effectually retards age than 
the keeping in mind the bright, cheerful, optim- 
istic, hopeful, buoyant picture of youth, in all its 
splendor, magnificence; the picture of the glories 
which belong to youth — youthful dreams, ideals, 
hopes, and all the qualities which belong to young 
life. 

One great trouble with us is that our imagina- 
tions age prematurely. The hard, exacting condi- 
tions of our modern, strenuous life tend to harden 
and dry up the brain and nerve cells, and thus 
seriously injure the power of the imagination, 
which should be kept fresh, bouyant, elastic. 
The average routine habit of modern business 
life tends to destroy the flexibility, the delicacy, 
the sensitiveness, the exquisite fineness of the 
perceptive faculties. 

People who take life too seriously, who seem 
to think everything depends upon their own in- 
dividual efforts, whose lives are one continuous 
grind in living-getting, have a hard expression, 

[8] 



Why Grow Old? 



their thought outpictures itself in their faces. 
These people dry up early in life, become wrinkled ; 
their tissues become as hard as their thought. 

The arbitrary, domineering, overbearing mind 
also tends to age the body prematurely, because 
the thinking is hard, strained, abnormal. 

People who live on the sunny and beautiful side 
of life, who cultivate serenity, do not age nearly so 
rapidly as do those who live on the shady, the 
dark side. 

Another reason why so many people age pre- 
maturely is because they cease to grow. It is a 
lamentable fact that multitudes of men seem in- 
capable of receiving or accepting new ideas after 
they have reached middle age. Many of them, 
after they have reached the age of forty or fifty, 
come to a standstill in their mental reaching out. 

Don't think that you must "begin to take in 
sail," to stop growing, stop progressing, just be- 
cause you have gotten along in years. By this 
method of reasoning you will decline rapidly. 
Never allow yourself to get out of the habit of 
being young. Do not say that you cannot do this 
or that as you once did. Live the life that belongs 
to youth. Do not be afraid of being a boy or girl 
again in spirit, no matter how many years you 
have lived. Carry yourself so that you will not 

[9] 



Why Grow Old? 



suggest old age in any of its phases. Remem- 
ber it is the stale mind, the stale mentality, that 
ages the body. Keep growing, keep interested 
in everything about you. 

It has been shown that the conviction that one 
is going to die at about a certain time, a certain 
age, tends to bring about the expected dissolution 
by strangling the life processes. 

If you wish to retain your youth, forget un- 
pleasant experiences, disagreeable incidents. A 
lady eighty years old was recently asked how she 
managed to keep herself so youthful. She replied : 
"I know how to forget disagreeable things." 

No one can remain youthful who does not 
continue to grow, and no one can keep growing 
who does not keep alive his interest in the great 
world about him. We are so constituted that we 
draw a large part of our nourishment from others. 
No man can isolate himself, can cut himself off 
from his fellows, without shrinking in his mental 
stature. The mind that is not constantly reaching 
out for the new, as well as keeping in touch with 
the old, soon reaches its limit of growth. 

Nothing else is easier than for a man to age. 
All he has to do is to think he is growing old ; to 
expect it, to fear it, and prepare for it ; to compare 
himself with others of the same age who are 

[10] 



Why Grow Old? 



prematurely old and to assume that he is like 
them. 

To think constantly of the "end," to plan for 
death, to prepare and provide for declining years, 
is simply to acknowledge that your powers are 
waning, that you are losing your grip upon life. 
Such thinking tends to weaken your hold upon the 
life principle, and your body gradually corresponds 
with your conviction. 

The very belief that our powers are waning; 
the consciousness that we are losing strength, 
that our vitality is lessening; the conviction that 
old age is settling upon us and that our life 
forces are gradually ebbing away, has a blighting, 
shrivelling influence upon the mental faculties 
and functions; the whole character deteriorates 
under this old-age belief. 

The result is that we do not use or develop 
the age-resisting forces within us. The refresh- 
ening, renewing, resisting powers of the body 
are so reduced and impaired by the conviction 
that we are getting on in years and cannot stand 
what we once could, that we become an easy 
prey to disease and all sorts of physical infirmities. 

The mental attitude has everything to do with 
the hastening or the retarding of the old-age 
condition. 

[11] 



Why Grow Old? 



Dr. MetchnikorT, of the Pasteur Institute in 
Paris, says that men should . live at least one 
hundred and twenty years. There is no doubt 
that, as a race, we shorten our lives very materi- 
ally through our false thinking, our bad living, 
and our old-age convictions. 

A few years ago the London Lancet, the highest 
medical authority in the world, gave a splendid 
illustration of the power of the mind to keep the 
body young. A young woman, deserted by her 
lover, became insane. She lost all consciousness 
of the passing of time. She believed her lover 
would return, and for years she stood daily before 
her window watching for him. When over seventy 
years of age, some Americans, including physi- 
cians, who saw her, thought she was not over 
twenty. She did not have a single gray hair, and 
no wrinkles or other signs of age were visible. 
Her skin was as fair and smooth as a young girl's. 
She did not age because she believed she was still 
a girl. She did not count her birthdays or worry 
because she was getting along in years. She was 
thoroughly convinced that she was still living in 
the very time that her lover left her. This mental 
belief controlled her physical condition. She was 
just as old as she thought she was. Her conviction 
outpictured itself in her body and kept it youthful. 

[12] 



Why Grow Old? 



It is an insult to your Creator that your brain 
should begin to ossify, that your mental powers 
should begin to decline when you have only 
reached the half-century milestone. You ought 
then to be in your youth. What has the appearance 
of old age to do with youth ? What have gray hair, 
wrinkles, and other evidences of age to do with 
youth ? Mental power should constantly increase. 
There should be no decline in years. Increasing 
wisdom and power should be the only signs that 
you have lived long, that you have been many 
years on this planet. Strength, beauty, magnifi- 
cence, superiority, not weakness, uselessness, 
decrepitude, should characterize a man who has 
lived long. 

As long as you hold the conviction that you 
are sixty, you will look it. Your thought will 
outpicture itself in your face, in your whole appear- 
ance. If you hold the old-age ideal, the old-age 
conviction, your expression must correspond. 
The body is the bulletin board of the mind. 

On the other hand, if you think of yourself as 
perpetually young, vigorous, robust, and buoyant, 
because every cell in the body is constantly being 
renewed, decrepitude will not get hold of you. 

If you would retain your youth, you must 
avoid the enemies of youth, and there are no 
[13] 



Why Grow Old? 



greater enemies than the convictions of age and 
the gradual loss of interest in things, especially 
in youthful amusements and in the young life 
about you. When you are no longer interested 
in the hopes and ambitions of young people; 
when you decline to enter into their sports, to romp 
and play with children, you confess in effect that 
you are growing old; that you are beginning to 
harden ; that your youthful spirits are drying up, 
and that the juices of your younger days are 
evaporating. Nothing helps more to the perpet- 
uation of youth than much association with the 
young. 

A man quite advanced in years was asked not 
long ago how he retained such a youthful appear- 
ance in spite of his age. He said that he had been 
the principal of a high school for over thirty years ; 
that he loved to enter into the life and sports of 
the young people and to be one of them in their 
ambitions and interests. This, he said, had kept 
his mind centred on youth, progress, and abound- 
ing life, and the old-age thought had had no room 
for entrance. 

There is not even a suggestion of age in this 
man's conversation or ideas, and there is a life, 
a buoyancy about him which is wonderfully 
refreshing. 

[14] 



Why Grow Old? 



There must be a constant activity in the mind 
that would not age. "Keep growing or die" is 
nature's motto, a motto written all over every- 
thing in the universe. 

Hold stoutly to the conviction that it is natural 
and right for you to remain young. Constantly 
repeat to yourself that it is wrong, wicked for you 
to grow old in appearance; that weakness and 
decrepitude could not have been in the Creator's 
plan for the man made in His image of perfection ; 
that it must have been acquired — the result of 
wrong race and individual training and thinking. 

Constantly affirm: "I am always well, always 
young, I cannot grow old except by producing the 
old-age conditions through my thought. The 
Creator intended me for continual growth, per- 
petual advancement and betterment, and I am 
not going to allow myself to be cheated out of my 
birthright of perennial youth." 

No matter if people do say to you: "You are 
getting along in years," "You are beginning to 
show signs of age." Just deny these appearances. 
Say to yourself: "Principle does not age, Truth 
does not grow old. I am Principle. I am Truth." 

Never go to sleep with the old-age picture or 
thought in your mind. It is of the utmost im- 
portance to make yourself feel young at night ; to 
[15] 



Why Grow Old? 



erase all signs, convictions, and feelings of age; 
to throw aside every care and worry that would 
carve its image on your brain and express itself 
in your face. The worrying mind actually gener- 
ates calcareous matter in the brain and hardens 
the cells. 

You should fall asleep holding those desires 
and ideals uppermost in the mind which are 
dearest to you; which you are the most anxious 
to realize. As the mind continues to work during 
sleep, these desires and ideals are thus intensified 
and increased. It is well known that impure 
thoughts and desires work terrible havoc then. 
Purity of thought, loftiness of purpose, the highest 
possible aims, should dominate the mind when you 
fall asleep. 

When you first wake in the morning, especially 
if you have reached middle life or later, picture 
the youthful qualities as vividly as possible. Say 
to yourself: "I am young, always young — 
strong — buoyant. I cannot grow old and de- 
crepit, because in the truth of my being I am 
divine, and Divine Principle cannot age. It is 
only the negative in me, the unreality, that can 
take on the appearance of age." 

The great thing is to make the mind create the 
youth pattern instead of the old-age pattern. As 

[16] 



Why Grow Old? 



the sculptor follows the model which he holds in 
the mind, so the life processes reproduce in the 
body the pattern which is in our thought, our 
conviction. 

We must get rid of the idea embedded in our 
very nature that the longer we live, the more 
experiences we have, the more work we do, the 
more inevitably we wear out and become old, 
decrepit, and useless. We must learn that living, 
acting, experiencing, should not exhaust life but 
create more life. It is a law that action increases 
force. Where, then, did the idea come from that 
man should wear out through action ? 

As a matter of fact, Nature has bestowed upon 
us perpetual youth, the power of perpetual re- 
newal. There is not a single cell in our bodies that 
can possibly become old; the body is constantly 
being made new through cell-renewal ; and as the 
cells of these parts of the body that are most active 
are renewed oftenest, it must follow that the age- 
producing process is largely artificial and un- 
natural. 

Physiologists tell us that the tissue cells of some 
muscles are renewed every few hours, others 
every few days or weeks. The cells of the bone 
tissues are slower of renewal, but some authorities 
estimate that eighty or ninety per cent of all the 
[17] 



Why Grow Old? 



cells in the body of a person of ordinary activity 
are entirely renewed in from six to twelve months. 

Scientists have proved beyond question that 
the chemistry of the body has everything to do 
with the perpetuation of youthful conditions. 
Every discordant thought produces a chemical 
change in the cells, introducing foreign substances 
and causing reaction which is injurious to the 
integrity of the cells. 

The impression of age is thus made upon new 
cells. This impression is the thought. If the 
thought is old, the age impress appears upon the 
cells. If the spirit of youth dominates the thought, 
the impression upon the cells is youthful. In 
other words, the processes which result in age 
cannot possibly operate except through the mind, 
and the billions of cells composing the body are 
instantly affected by every thought that passes 
through the brain. 

Putting old thoughts into a new set of cells is 
like putting new wine into old bottles. They 
don't agree; they are natural enemies. The 
result is that two-year-old cells are made to look 
fifty, sixty, or more years old, according to the 
thought. It is marvellous hoio quickly old thoughts 
can make neiv cells appear old. 

All discordant and antagonistic thought mate- 

[18] 



Why Grow Old? 



rially interferes with the laws of reconstruction 
and self-renewal going on in the body, and the 
great thing is, therefore, to form thought habits 
which will harmonize with this law of rejuvena- 
tion — perpetual renewal. 

Hard, selfish, worry, and fear thoughts, and 
vicious habits of all kinds, produce the appearance 
of age and hasten its coming. 

Pessimism is one of the worst enemies of youth. 
The pessimist ages prematurely because his mind 
dwells upon the black, discordant, and diseased 
side of things. The pessimist does not progress, 
does not face toward youth; he goes backward, 
and this retrogression is fatal to youthful condi- 
tions. Brightness, cheerfulness, hopefulness char- 
acterize youth. 

Everything that is abnormal tends to produce 
old-age conditions. No one can remain young, 
no matter to what expedients he may resort to 
enable him to erase the marks of age, who worries 
and indulges in excessive passion. The mental 
processes produce all sorts of things, good or bad, 
according to the pattern in the mind. 

Selfishness is abnormal and tends to harden 

and dry up the brain and nerve cells. We are so 

constituted that we must be good to be happy, 

and happiness spells youthfulness. Selfishness is 

[19] 



Why Grow Old? 



an enemy of happiness because it violates the very- 
fundamental principle of our being — justice, 
fairness. We protest against it, we instinctively 
despise and think less of ourselves for practising 
it. It does not tend to produce health, harmony, 
or a sense of well-being, because it does not har- 
monize with the fundamental principle of our 
being. 

With many people, old age is a perpetual 
horror, which destroys comfort and happiness and 
makes life a tragedy, which, but for it, might have 
been a perpetual joy. 

Many wealthy people do not really enjoy their 
possessions because of that awful consciousness 
that they may at any moment be forced to leave 
everything. 

Discordant thought of every kind tends to shorten 
life. 

As long as you think old, hard, grasping, en- 
vious thoughts, nothing in the world can keep 
you from growing old. As long as you harbor 
these enemies of youth, you cannot remain in a 
youthful condition. New thoughts create new 
life; old thoughts — canned, stereotyped thoughts 
— are injurious to growth, and anything which 
stops growth helps the aging processes. 

Whatever thought dominates the mind at any 
[20] 



Why Grow Old? 



time is constantly modifying, changing the life 
ideal, so that every suggestion that comes into 
the mind from any source is registered in the cell 
life, etched in the character, and outpictured in 
the expression and appearance. If the ideal of 
continual youth, of a body in a state of perpetual 
rejuvenation, dominates the mind, it neutralizes 
the aging processes. All of the body follows the 
dominating thought, motive and feeling, and 
takes on its expression. For example, a man who 
is constantly worrying, fretting, a victim of fear, 
cannot possibly help outpicturing this condition 
in his body. Nothing in the world can counter- 
act this hardening, aging, ossifying process but a 
complete reversal of the thought, so that the op- 
posite ideas dominate. The effect of the mind on 
the body is always absolutely scientific. It follows 
an inexorable law. 

There is a power of health latent in every cell 
of the body which would always keep the cell in 
harmony and preserve its integrity if the thought 
were right. This latent power of health in the 
cell can be so developed by right thinking and 
living as to retard very materially the aging 
processes. 

One of the most effective means of developing 
it is to keep cheerful and optimistic. As long as 
[21] 



Why Grow Old? 



the mind faces the sun of life it will cast no shadow 
before it. 

Hold ever before you, like a beacon light, the 
youth ideal — strength, buoyancy, hopefulness, 
expectancy. Hold persistently to the thought 
that your body is the last two years' product; 
that there may not be in it a single cell more than 
a year and a half old ; that it is constantly young 
because it is perpetually being renewed and that, 
therefore, it ought to look fresh and youthful. 

Constantly say to yourself: "If Nature makes 
me a new body every few months, comparatively, 
if the billions of tissue cells are being perpetually 
renewed, if the oldest of these cells are, perhaps, 
rarely, if ever, more than two years old, why 
should they appear to be sixty or seventy-five?" 
A two-year-old cell could not look like a seventy- 
year-old cell of its own accord, but we know from 
experience that the old-age conviction can make 
these youthful cells look very old. If the body 
is always young, it should always look young; 
and it would if we did not make it look old by 
stamping old age upon it. We Americans seem 
very adept in putting the old-age stamp upon 
new tissue cells. Yet it is just as easy to form 
the youthful-thought habit as the old-age-thought 
habit. 

[22] 



Why Grow Old? 



If you would keep young, you must learn the 
secret of self -rejuvenation, self-refreshment, self- 
renewal, in your thought, in your work. Hard 
thoughts, too serious thoughts, mental confusion, 
excitement, worry, anxiety, jealousy, the indul- 
gence of explosive passions, all tend to shorten 
life. 

You will find a wonderful rejuvenating power 
in the cultivation of faith in the immortal Principle 
of health in every atom of your being. We are all 
conscious that there is something in us which is 
never sick and which never dies, something which 
connects us with the Divine. There is a wonderful 
healing influence in holding the consciousness of 
this great truth. 

Some people are so constituted that they per- 
petually renew themselves. They do not seem to 
get tired or weary of their tasks, because their 
minds are constantly refreshing themselves. They 
are self-lubricators, self -ren ewers. To keep from 
aging, we must keep the picture of youth in all its 
beauty and glory impressed upon the mind. It is 
impossible to appear youthful, to be young, unless 
we feel young. 

Without realizing it, most people are using the 
old-age thought as a chisel to cut a little deeper 
the wrinkles. Their old-age thought is stamping 
[23] 



Why Grow Old? 



itself upon the new cells only a few months old, 
so that they very soon look to be forty, fifty, sixty, 
or seventy years old. 

Never allow yourself to think of yourself as 
growing old. Constantly affirm, if you feel your- 
self aging, "I am young because I am perpetually 
being renewed ; my life comes new every moment 
from the Infinite Source of life. I am new every 
morning and fresh every evening because I live, 
move, and have my being in Him who is the 
Source of all life." Not only affirm this men- 
tally, but verbally when you can. Make this pic- 
ture of perpetual renewal, constant refreshment, 
re-creation, so vivid, that you will feel the thrill 
of youthful renewal through your entire system. 
Under no circumstances allow the old-age thought 
and suggestion to remain in the mind. Remem- 
ber that it is what you feel, what you are con- 
vinced of, that will be outpictured in your body. 
If you think you are aging, if you walk, talk, 
dress, and act like an old person, these condi- 
tions will be outpictured in your expression, face, 
manner, and body generally. 

Youthful thought should be a life habit. 

Cling to the thought that the truth of your 
being can never age, because it is Divine Prin- 
ciple. Picture the cells of the body being con- 

[24] 



Why Grow Old? 



stantly made over. Hold this perpetual-renewal 
picture in your mind, and the old-age thought, 
the old-age conviction will become inoperative. 

The new youth-thought habit will drive out 
the old-age-thought habit. If you can only feel 
your w T hole body being perpetually made over, 
constantly renewed, you will keep the body 
young, fresh. 

There is a tremendous youth-retaining power 
in holding high ideals and lofty sentiments. The 
spirit cannot grow old while one is constantly 
aspiring to something better, higher, nobler. 
Employment which develops the higher self; the 
frequent dwelling upon lofty themes and high 
purposes — all are powerful preservatives of 
youth. It is senility of the soul that makes people 
old. *;: + 

The living of life should be a perpetual joy. 
Youth and joy are synonymous. If we do not 
enjoy life, if we do not feel that it is a delight to 
be alive, if we do not look upon our work as a 
grand privilege, we shall age prematurely. 

Live always in a happy mental-attitude. Live 
in the ideal, and the aging-processes cannot get 
hold of you. It is the ideal that keeps one young. 
When we think of age, we think of weakness, 
decrepitude, imperfection; we do not think of 
[25] 



Why Grow Old? 



wholeness, vigor. Every time you think of your- 
self make a vivid mental picture of your ideal 
self as the very picture of youth, of health and 
vigor. Think health. Feel the spirit of youth 
and hope surging through your body. Form the 
most perfect picture of physical manhood or 
womanhood that is possible to the human mind. 

The elixir of youth which alchemists sought 
so long in chemicals, we find lies in ourselves. 
The secret is in our own mentality. Perpetual 
rejuvenation is possible only by right thinking. 
We look as old as we think and feel because it is 
thought and feeling that change our appearance. 

Let us put beauty into our lives by thinking 
beautiful thoughts, building beautiful ideals, and 
picturing beautiful things in our imagination. 

I know of no remedy for old-age conditions so 
powerful as love — love for our work, love for 
our fellow-men, love for everything. 

It is the most powerful life-renewer, refreshener, 
re-creator, known. Love awakens the noblest 
sentiments, the finest sensibilities, the most ex- 
quisite qualities in man. 

Try to find and live in the soul of things, to see 
the best in everybody. When you think of a 
person, hold in your mind the ideal of that per- 
son — that which God meant him to be — not 

[26] 



Why Grow Old? 



the deformed, weak, ignorant creature which 
vice and wrong living may have made. This 
habit of refusing to see anything but the ideal will 
not only be a wonderful help to others, but also 
to yourself. Refuse to see deformity or weakness 
anywhere, but hold persistently your highest 
ideals. Other things being equal, it is the clean- 
est, purest mind that lives longest. 

Harmony, peace, and serenity are absolutely 
necessary to perpetuate youthful conditions. All 
discord, all unbalanced mental operations, tend 
to produce aging conditions. The contemplation 
of the eternal verities enriches the ideals and 
freshens life because it destroys fear, uncertainty, 
and worry by adding assurance and certainty to 
life. 

Old-age conditions can only exist in cells which 
have become deteriorated and hardened by 
wrong thinking and vicious living. Unrestrained 
passion or fits of temper burn out the cells very 
rapidly. 

People who are very useful, who are doing their 
work grandly, growing vigorously, retain their 
youthful appearance. We can form the habit of 
staying young just as well as the habit of growing 
old. 

Increasing power and wisdom ought to be the 
[27] 



Why Grow Old? 



only sign of our long continuance on this earth. 
We ought to do our best work after fifty, or even 
after sixty or seventy; and if the brain is kept 
active, fresh, and young, and the brain cells are 
not ruined by too serious a life, by worry, fear, 
selfishness, or disease, the mind will constantly 
increase in vigor and power. 

If we are convinced that the life processes can 
perpetuate youth instead of age, they will obey 
the command. The fact that man's sin, his ig- 
norance of true living, made the threescore years, 
with the possible addition of ten more, the average 
limit of life centuries ago, is no reason why any 
one in this man-emancipating age should narrow 
himself to this limit. 

An all-wise and benevolent Creator could not 
make us with such a great yearning for long life, 
a longing to remain young, without any possibility 
of realizing it. The very fact of this universal 
protest in all human beings against the enormous 
disproportion between the magnitude of our mis- 
sion upon earth and the shortness of the time 
and the meagreness of the opportunities for carry- 
ing it out; the universal yearning for longevity; 
and all analogy in the animal kingdom, all point 
to the fact that man was not only intended for a 
much longer life, but also for a much greater free- 

[28] 



Why Grow Old? 



dom from the present old-age weaknesses and 
handicaps. 

There is not the slightest indication in the mar- 
vellous mechanism of man that he was intended 
to become weak, crippled, and useless after a 
comparatively few years. Instead, all the indica- 
tions are toward progress into a larger, completer, 
fuller manhood, greater power. A dwarfed, 
weak, useless man was never in the Creator's plan. 
Retrogression is contrary to all principle and law. 
Progress, perpetual enlargement, growth, are the 
truth of man. The Creator never made anything 
for retrogression ; it is contrary to the very nature 
of Deity. "Onward and upward" is written upon 
every atom in the universe. Imagine the Creator 
fashioning a man in his own likeness for only a 
few years of activity and growth, and then — 
retrogression, crippled helplessness ! There is 
nothing of God in this picture. Whatever the 
Deity makes bears the stamp of perpetual prog- 
ress, everlasting growth. There is no going 
backward in His plans, everything moves forward 
to one eternal divine purpose. A decrepit, help- 
less old man or woman is a burlesque of the 
human being God made. His image does not de- 
teriorate or go backward, but moves forever on- 
ward, eternally upward. If human beings could 
[29] 



Why Grow Old? 



only once grasp this idea, that the reality of them 
is divine, and that divinity does not go backward 
or grow old, they would lose all sense of fear and 
worry, all enemies of their progress and happiness 
would slink aw^ay, and the aging processes w T ould 
cease. 

The coming man will not grow old. Perpetual 
youth is his destiny. 

The time will come when people will look upon 
old age as an unreality, a negative, a mere phan- 
tom of the real man. The rose that fades is not 
the real rose. The real rose is the ideal — the 
idea which pushes out a new one every time we 
pluck the one that fades. 

The real man is God's ideal, and in the light 
of the new day that is dawning man will glimpse 
that perfect ideal. He will know the truth, and 
the truth will make him free. In that new day he 
will cast from him the hampering, age-worn ves- 
tures woven in the thought-loom of mankind 
through the centuries, and stand erect — the 
perfect being, the ideal man. 



H30] 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



DDOEba^lHES 





